Our Elf on the Shelf returns, the start of our countdown to Christmas and making Beewswax candles

Elfie arrived! We love our elf! It was his first day so he hid fairly easy for the girls to find him way up high on the book shelf between a few presents we have already wrapped awaiting the arrival of our tree.

It took Sierra less then 1 minute to spot him after she found the box with the story he arrived in 3 years ago to us. She screamed Elfie when she saw that the box was on the table and opened. As soon as she noticed he wasn't in it...she looked up and found him right away.

Being December 1st today we also got to open our first countdown to Christmas matchbox. Todays activity was to go to Funderland at the Wasaga Beach RecPlex....sounds fun...right???

Aayla had the sniffles this morning so she wanted to stay home with daddy. Sierra and I got ready and headed out the door. When we arrived with our foodbank donation in hand (entrance is by food bank donation only) Sierra was excited to walk around first and see what was there this year...it happened something like this:

Me: Oh look Sierra bird feeders...would you like to build a bird feeder? I think that would be cool!
Sierra: No, not really

Me: How about the fun bouncer?
Sierra: No but Aayla would like that if she was here. She loves trains!

Me: Want to try tball? That looks pretty cool how the balls float in the air for you to hit.
Sierra: Nah

Me: How about the cookie decorating...you loved that last year.
Sierra: Yeah!!! Lets decorate cookies...wait...where's the cookies. No I don't want to do that they don't even have cookies.

Me: But they are graham crackers honey like you use in smores...it would still be fun.
Sierra: No I don't think so.

Me: OK Lets check out the craft table.
Sierra: Nah

Me: How about face painting
Sierra: Yeah!!! No I'm not waiting in that line up

Me: Ok well the only thing left is to try the hand dipped wax molding
Sierra: No No no I don't want that on me. That's gross.

Me: Well that's it. Do you want to look around some more or just go home?
Sierra: Is it OK if I just want to go home mommy?
Me: Of course sweetheart...if there is nothing here you are interested in, and Aayla isn't here wanting to stay of course it's OK!

So much for our first countdown to Christmas activity...I sure hope tomorrows goes better :)

I forgot to post about our beeswax candles we made the other day too so I'll include a couple pics now.

Sierra enjoyed pressing the cookie cutters into the wax sheets to make our shapes. We used 6 cut out pieces per candle. Layered them together with a piece of wick in the middle and then lightly heated them with a blow dryer and gently pressed them together so the pieces would stick together.

 Sierra showing me her finished gingerbread shaped candle. I thought it looked perfect! The beeswax smells so wonderful when working with it and when burning it.

 Candles in the making.

 Although I loved the natural look to the plain candles both Sierra and Aayla had other thoughts and begged me to bring out the plastic gems to add features to their candles...not quite so natural anymore but  they had fun and that's what really counts.

 When we were done Sierra made this picture with some scraps and gems.

 My owl candle burning below...I was surprised that it lasted about an hour and 20 minutes. I thought maybe 20 minutes tops.

Sierra says to me as my candle burns, "your candle sucks mom...look it's burning the owls head! When we light mine I don't want it to burn like that"!

Me: How do you want it to burn?
Sierra: I just want a flame to come out...I don't want it to melt my candle.

Oh the things kids come up with sometimes :)

And last but not least happy 61st to my dad yesterday. We almost caught the house on fire with all those candles :)